Seeking political attention through @mentioning: Activist interpellation of Scandinavian party leaders on Instagram

This study explores how activists use Instagram’s @mention function to seek attention from politicians. Drawing upon and adapting Althusser’s concept of interpellation, the study investigates the discursive tactics used by activists when @mentioning the leaders of political parties, and how the function can be used in attempts to interpellate these politicians. Using multimodal discourse analysis, 338 Instagram posts that @mention party leaders from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are analyzed. The study analyses how the different semiotic elements of the posts combine in contributing to five main hailing tactics: asserting authority, attributing blame, expressing appreciation, addressing inaction, and evoking empathy. The article furthermore shows that when party leaders are @mentioned, activists tend to assign them to a set of reoccurring subject positions: villain, bystander, ally, and hypocrite. Through the systematic analysis of the activists @mention practices, the article expands the research on new forms of political engagement and dialogue, and, in turn, the complexities of digital activism.